‘Won’t Back Down’: Realities the movie ignores
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| Rita Solnet "Won’t Back Down" |
Though the film “Won’t Back Down,” starring Viola Davis and Maggie Gyllenhaal, is not being released in theaters until the end of September, its backers are already drumming up support for it and its subject: the controversial “parent trigger” laws that have passed in a few states and are being considered by many others.
Screenings are being shown and a huge concert was staged and then broadcast on CBS — funded in part by Walden Media, which is owned by entrepreneur and Christian conservative Philip Anschutz, whose foundation has supported a number of organizations and causes that include campaigns against same-sex marriage and single parenting.
I will publish a number of pieces on this movie, which promises to be this year’s “Waiting for Superman,” a 2010 film that purported to be a documentary but was a tendentious look that vilified teachers unions and advanced the notion that charter schools were the answer to public education’s ills.
I haven’t seen “Won’t Back Down” yet but a number of people have, including parent activist Rita Solnet, who wrote the following. Solnet is a former director of leadership development at IBM, an organizational